Tutoring works!

This year has been the first time I have tried weekly tutoring with kids in addition to teaching classes of young children.

Why is tutoring so rewarding?

• I can build a strong cooperative relationship with the child.
• Our time together is a respite – a quiet time in a supportive environment.
• I can target the work to meet exactly what the child needs – whether it is blending sounds for an early reader or understanding the relationship between fractions and percentages – using hands-on materials wherever possible.
• As the child develops proficiency at his/her work, his/her confidence grows.
• With greater confidence, we can venture into new areas of learning.
• Every once in a while, I take a minute and show the child the things that he/she can do well – too many people have usually told the child what he/she does not do well…
• Don’t tell the older kids, but the younger ones get some time to choose what they want to do in the classroom…making it more interesting.
• So far, the children and I are enjoying ourselves…and both of us are learning…which is why tutoring is becoming my main line of work.

Teri Courchene

 

Learning disabilities in young children

First of all, let me say that OISE should revoke Chris Spence’s PhD degree in light of the revelations of plagiarism in his PhD thesis (and throughout his career…). On behalf of fellow students at OISE who actually do their own work, it will be a disgrace if his degree is not revoked.

Moving right along…I want to start a discussion about learning disabilities. At the moment, I am taking a course in learning disabilities at OISE. Our prof, Todd Cunningham, has a learning disability himself and not only does he give us a first hand understanding of his struggles, but he entertains us with the humorous take on some aspects of his learning disability (such as how his limited working memory works against him in arguments with his wife!).

At the outset of the course, we began to discuss definitions and assessment. Straightforward, you might think. Not so. Living in Ontario and exposed to the province’s policy of defining a learning disability as a (1.5 to 2.0 standard deviation) gap between potential/IQ and and achievement, it was a shock to learn that most other provinces do not have as strict a definition. The trend across the country (in line with recent research findings) is to shift to a model of academic and functional deficits as a way to determine whether students should receive additional support.

Why does the definition matter? Being diagnosed with a learning disability (LD) could have a negative side effect if the child feels stigmatized in some way. On the positive side, however, what the diagnosis does mean is that the child receives the needed support within the public school system, including an IEP (individual education plan), and accommodations and supports such as extra time on tests, one-on-one reading assistance, or assistive technology. Having students who are lagging behind yet do not qualify for support because their “gap” is not large enough does not appear to make sense from the point of view of the struggling student.

Taking reading as an example, it has been shown that children lagging behind in reading skills during the early years follow exactly the same learning pathway whether they have a learning disability or whether they are just slow at learning to read. This finding, plus other research in the same vein, is a reason for broadening the definition of learning disabilities to one proposed by the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada. This definition is not limited to but includes the following component:

“Learning disabilities are suggested by unexpected academic under-achievement or achievement which is maintained only by unusually high levels of effort and support.” (Kozey & Siegel, 2008, p. 163)

So, what do we do? Offering help to children during the early years, as early as kindergarten, has been shown to be extremely beneficial and in some cases, to remove the learning obstacle entirely. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans show that early intervention has been successful in improving the functioning of the affected areas of the brain – a permanent improvement. At the present time, Ontario schools rarely test for learning disabilities before grade 3.

More to come on what teachers can do…

Kozey, M. & Siegel, L.S. (2008). Definitions of learning disabilities in Canadian provinces and territories. Canadian Psychology, 49, 162-171.

 

 

The marshmallow test

There are so many reasons to bake with the children in my school and the least of them is to have something yummy for snack! (We don’t bake with marshmallows, but be patient, we will get to the marshmallows later…)

Not only do children get the enjoyment of creating something, they also learn about the steps in baking, the ingredients and the measures (1 cup versus 1 teaspoon, etc.). Here are some other things the children learn and do:

• There is a bowl for the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients.
• You can make a sandcastle with the brown sugar but not the white sugar.
• Vanilla smells wonderful but tastes awful.
• If you put each ingredient away after it is added, you will keep track of what you have already added to the mix.
• The children also get the practice of stirring all of the ingredients, whether it is slowly for the dry ingredients, or vigorously for the margarine/sugar/egg batter.
• The children take turns adding ingredients and stirring the batter. We always go clockwise around the work surface.
• If batter gets on their fingers – no licking! They have to wash their hands.

The most important lesson in baking, I believe, is self-regulation – one of the hottest topics in education these days. What is self-regulation? The ability to inhibit movement when needed, wait one’s turn, make decisions on one’s own, act when appropriate – in a nutshell, to be able to regulate one’s own behaviour appropriately.

OK – so you have been patiently waiting to hear about the marshmallows…

The Stanford marshmallow experiment, introduced in the late 1960′s, is a test devised to see if children can delay gratification. In a test situation, a child is given one marshmallow and told that he/she can either have this one now, or wait and get two when the researcher returns to the room 20 minutes later. The researcher leaves the room and watches to see whether the child eats the marshmallow or waits and receives a second marshmallow. It is proposed that whether the child has enough self control to wait for the second marshmallow is a good predictor of future academic achievement and success in adult life. An interesting article on this in The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

For a child, waiting his or her turn or inhibiting movement (no jumping around, sticking one’s hand in the bowl to test the batter, etc.) are very hard to do – believe me! The children in my school – ages 2 1/2 to 6 – are wonderful at this, even if they don’t do this at home!

And, at the end, our patience is rewarded with fresh, yummy cookies or muffins. Well worth the wait.

For all of our recipes, go to:

http://riverdalemontessori.ca/

Teri

Addition with Dice

This is an interesting way for children to become familiar with addition. All of the children here enjoy it. Even when children have not quite mastered writing numbers to 10, they ask if they can do this. We use our grid paper and the child writes out the equation, then counts up the dots and writes the answer.

The ability to recognize that 5 dots represents 5 is called subitizing. Children learn to subitize in various ways – sometimes by playing lots of board games. I find that children these days are less used to dice, so this game is a bit of a novelty for them.

Children fill up one side of the grid paper – 10 equations. I would not check the answers for this type of work since it is the process that is the most important.

As with all of the other things in the classroom, the activity is attractive and appealing to the child. By having a basket to roll the dice in, the work remains in a defined area and the child can always see what he/she has rolled. For this work, I like to use two different colours for the two dice, as I think it makes it a little easier for the child to see which one he/she has already counted.

Readers – please weigh in on this and any other topic. I would love to hear your comments!

Teri

Grid paper rules!

If I had only one material with which to teach mathematics from Kindergarten to grade 6, it would be grid paper with 1cm squares. Over the years, I have used grid paper to teach counting, skip counting, multiplication, and area of rectangles and triangles to children in grades 1-6, including children in Special Education in grades 4-6. We have also used it for graphing (see earlier Dice Race post) for children in Kindergarten. If I didn’t have other materials, I would also use it for addition and subtraction.

The paper is simple and appealing to children. It can be used as a full sheet (10 x 10), half sheet (10 x 5), for the dice race (6 x 10), or with 2 rows of 10 squares for early counting exercises. Yesterday, several children in Kindergarten were using the paper for counting. I don’t tell them where they will end up of course, and what they tell me reveals their understanding of numbers. The child writing numbers on the 10 x 5 paper (it was his idea to start this) told me that he knew it would end up at 50, then showed me the rightmost column, saying: “10, 20, 30, then it will be 40, then 50″.

The other child working on the numbers (this time to 20) did not talk about where she would end up. This work was at my initiative, since I wanted to help her with practice on numbers to 20. She enjoyed it and did a second one, quickly, accurately and with confidence.

We also use this paper for practicing writing the child’s name – or any other letters and numbers the child chooses. Often, when the older children are writing numbers to 50 or 100, the younger ones will take out the same paper, sit with the older children, and write 0 or 1, happy to be doing the same work as the “big kids.”

As with many other activities in my posts, this is not from the Montessori curriculum, but rather has evolved through my work with the children. More on this paper and activities to come in later posts…

Teri Courchene

Teri Courchene

One material, many ways to learn

Within the Montessori classroom, there are endless ways to work with the materials. Some of these ways are set out in the curriculum taught in the teacher training program, whereas others are improvised to match an interest on the part of the child. Several lessons with the colour tablets illustrate this.

Once the child is able to match the colour tablets (there are two of each colour), we try matching at a distance. This involves setting one set of colour tablets up all mixed up at our table, and the other set (the same colours) at a distant table. I set one colour tablet in front of the child and without saying the name of the colour, I ask the child to get the same colour from the other table – without taking the colour tablet along. At times, the child will come back for another look before finding the match. When the child comes back, I ask the child to put the tablet next to the one he/she was matching to and ask if it matches. It is important that the child decides if they match – I do not correct. This work builds the child’s working memory. There is often a distraction (conversation, interesting work to watch, etc.) along the way, which adds to the challenge.

Another lesson – and probably the most fun lesson from the child’s point of view – is matching to the environment (shown below). This activity involves setting one colour tablet in front of the child and asking him to find something in the environment that is the same colour and bring it to the table.  There are usually some very interesting choices of items!

To see if the child knows the names of all 11 colours, I ask the child to hand me the colours that he/she knows and tell me the name as he/she does so. If there are a few yet to learn, we do a 3-period lesson to help the child to learn the names of each colour.

Another way to work with these is labeling. Checking that the child knows the name of each colour, we set up a row of colours in front of the child. Often, I will select only one colour starting with each sound to make this work easier. This time, however, the child was very interested in using all of the colours, so we went ahead and used the entire set. Using the writing box (a narrow box with strips of paper, a pencil, and scissors), I write the name of one colour, cut the label, and place the label in front of the child. This work involves the child sounding out the name and then placing the label it in front of the colour to which it corresponds. This particular time, she was unsure about several labels that started with the same sound (green/grey, blue/black, and pink/purple), so I suggested that she set them aside for now. When all the others were done, she took these out and carefully sounded them out to match them to the appropriate colour. She was happy to bring these labels home to show to her family.

The point of sharing these lessons is to show how the same material can be used to match exactly where each child is in terms of language, working memory, and reading. In a number of cases, one child will watch the other working with a material and then ask to do the same thing, so my challenge is to refine the lesson to meet each child’s interest and ability.

Teri Courchene

Show, but don’t tell

A twist on the “show and tell” idea, Montessori favours “show, but don’t tell.” For children under 6, her method involves demonstrating an activity, but not giving verbal instructions. Discussion is certainly part of teaching, but not direct instruction. Why does this work for young children?

The answer lies with the mirror neurons. When a child is receiving a lesson, not only must the child inhibit movement (a topic for another blog), the child must also observe the teacher’s actions with the object of enacting them soon afterward. The activity of watching is not passive in the brain, as mirror neurons in the premotor cortex are at hard at work. Brain scanning has shown that when one observes another person performing a movement or series of movements, the observer’s brain goes through many of the motions that it would if the observer were performing the action. The brain is effectively preparing itself to replicate the movements. In research with monkeys, it was found that viewing of a goal-oriented action was required to get the mirror neurons to fire, not the viewing of the objects themselves. This neuron activity may help the monkeys to understand the goal of the observed action (Blakemore & Frith, 2005).

Does this mean that the teacher refrains from talking while presenting? Not necessarily. The focus is on the work, and the role of the Montessori teacher is to entice the child into the work…sometimes by talking, sometimes by altering the lesson to make it more suited to the child. Therein lies the challenge and the art of Montessori.

Teri Courchene

Blakemore, S., & Frith, U. (2005). The learning brain: Lessons for education. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.